Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager is the sponsor of Assembly Bill 398, which would provide extra pay for teachers in hard-to-fill positions. Yeager is pictured in 2023 in the Assembly Chambers of the Nevada Legislature in Carson City.
Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español en la página 8.
Assembly Bill 398, which would provide extra pay for teachers in hard-to-fill positions, remains active in the Nevada Legislature after surviving the first committee passage deadline.
The deadline last week significantly reduced the number of bills under consideration in the K-12 education sector this session. Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, is the sponsor of the teacher compensation bill.
“We know that too many of our schools and critical subject areas are struggling to attract and retain talented teachers.
This bill provides a targeted solution, offering additional compensation to the educators who step up to teach where they are most needed,” Yeager said last month as he stood beside several Clark County Education Association members outside the Capitol.
According to the bill, “hardto-fill” means a position at a high-poverty school with a teacher vacancy rate of 10-15%, depending on the school’s grade level.
The educators must teach English language arts, math, science or special education, and their jobs must be part of a “critical labor shortage.” In the Clark County School District, all teaching positions qualify as critical labor shortages, which is a state designation that allows retirees to return to work and collect their pension in addition to salary.
AB 398 differs from 2023’s Senate Bill 231, which provided $250 million in raises for teachers and school support professionals in districts statewide over the past two years. AB 398 does not specify a raise amount or total budget; bill language calls for “an amount determined by the Legislature to be sufficient to ameliorate high teacher vacancy rates.”
The bill excludes support professionals and charter school teachers. The added pay is intended to be temporary.
AB 398 hasn’t had a hearing yet but remains alive because it qualified for the fiscal exemption from last week’s deadline.
Anticipated education omnibus bills from Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Democratic legislative majority’s leadership are also among those that were exempt.
The next milestone requires bill approval in the full Assembly or Senate by Tuesday.
Still alive this session
Bills that have cleared committees and seek to make the Legislature’s next deadline include:
■AB 184, which would reform the transfer and hardship appeals processes for high school athletes. The rules of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association — a nonprofit agency designated by the state to govern high school sports — generally require students to sit out a year after transferring schools, although the NIAA will hear appeals of denied eligibility requests. The bill loosens the appeals rules for transferring students.
■ AB 205, another legislative attempt to automatically enroll students in sexual education classes unless parents opt them out. Nevada is one of only a few states with opt-in sexed, requiring parents to give explicit permission for their children to attend these lessons. Lawmakers have unsuccessfully attempted this switch several times through the years.
■ AB 217, which would prohibit Nevada’s public schools from granting access to facilities or sharing student or family information with authorities investigating federal immigration cases without a court order or warrant.
■AB 224, which calls on the state to sell $100 million in bonds to help needy, tax-capped rural school districts replace or repair deteriorating buildings.
■ AB 416, which strictly limits removing materials from school and public libraries and protects librarians from retaliation.
People who want a book removed must challenge it in the courts, which must find that the book meets the legal definition of “obscene” to pull it.
■AB 472, which would establish grants to help international teachers cover costs associated with converting their temporary J-1 visas into longer-term H1-B work visas.
■AB 494, which would codify several federal education provisions into state law should the federal government repeal them. This includes laws governing special education, education records, health information and discrimination based on race, color, national origin and sex.
Similarly, Senate Bill 368 would specifically codify special education laws at the state level.
■AB 533, which proposes open enrollment allowing children to attend a school outside of the one zoned for their home address, if the preferred school has room. CCSD already has policies matching the bill’s core.
Off the table
Several bills died in committee.
Unless otherwise stated, none received a committee hearing: • AB 240 would have limited transgender high school athletes to teams corresponding with the sex on their original birth certificates. A similar bill in the state Senate proposed applying these restrictions to high school and college sports. Although these restrictions on transgender youths will not go into statute this session, the NIAA board voted this month to reverse its policy allowing transgender students to play on teams aligning with their gender identity.
■AB 316 would have required every school district to appoint a student as a nonvoting board member. This proposal received a committee hearing but no vote.
■ AB 323 would have tightened the laws around closing schools. The bill followed CCSD’s poorly received, ultimately reversed attempt to shutter the storm-damaged elementary school on Mount Charleston.
• SB 59 would have banned teachers from “grooming” students for abuse.
■ SB 131 would have directed the Nevada Department of Education to develop curriculum standards teaching middle- and high school students about preventing human trafficking. hillary.davis@gmgvegas.com / 702-990-8949 / @HillaryLVSun